I had the honor of attending last week’s NFC championship game at sold-out CenturyLink Field in Seattle. Not only are the fans in Seattle the loudest in the league, but their players just may be the most entertaining — from their bruising running back Marshawn Lynch, who eats Skittles as his power pellets, to their undersized and electrifying quarterback Russell Wilson.

But the most outspoken of all the Seahawks players is their great cornerback Richard Sherman. There has not been a more flamboyant cornerback to play the game since Deion Sanders, who is arguably the greatest man to play that position in the history of the NFL.

Sherman is highly vocal on and off the field, and so far he has backed up every word that has come out of his mouth as he leads the NFL in interceptions. Some love him and some hate him, but most respect his competitiveness and the way that he plays the game.

Most fans respect the level of passion and intensity that it takes to play in the NFL, which naturally brings out heated interactions on the field. This is partly what makes the game so popular. As an NFL player, I always enjoyed a little trash talking, even though Sherman definitely goes a little too far for my taste.

On Sunday, Sherman was at his finest both with his play and his mouth.

Words like thug, classless, violent, uneducated and ghetto all poured across social media and national television. Seconds after the interview, Twitter was crawling with posts like, “Richard Sherman is a thug. Can't stand to see guys like that in professional sports,” and “Richard Sherman is ghetto and ignorant. Have some class you hoodrat.”

So why did this particular tirade cause such a polarizing reaction?

1. Are all sports treated equal?

Immediately after the Sherman debacle, the first thing that I thought about was how minor this incident was compared to the violence and aggression displayed in other sports.

Just last week I watched a hockey game that turned into a continuous violent brawl. Within the first two seconds of the game, all five players from both teams had dropped their gloves to fight. Eight players were ejected from the game in the first period after blood and injury was televised across most major media. I didn't hear anyone refer to these hockey players as violent, thugs or ghetto. Instead, this brawl, like numerous others in hockey, was referred to as entertainment and considered as part of the game.

When a pitcher in Major League Baseball intentionally pegs a batter, or when a batter charges the mound after being thrown at, we seldom hear personal insults related to class and race as we did with Richard Sherman.

I am the first to cheer during a hockey fight or stand up at my seat when a batter charges the mound. But it never crosses my mind to judge and categorize these players personally. This is a problem we need to address.

2. Will African-American athletes ever elude negative stigma?

Sherman is a 25-year-old man who happens to have dreadlocks. But what most people may not know is that he grew up in the tough Californian city of Compton. Unlike a thug or a bad guy, he graduated with a 4.2 GPA and was second in his class. He stayed disciplined and overcame the negative realities of his surroundings. Sherman attended Stanford University, where he was a great student and football player who graduated before entering the NFL.

So it disgusts me when I hear media and fans make statements about Sherman being an uneducated thug.

I'm the last person to pull the race card, but I wonder if some of the reaction was due to the stereotypes that some Americans hold about young black men.

A day after Sunday's game, we remembered Martin Luther King Jr. It might be a good time to also remember one of his great quotes: "I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

I didn't like Sherman's outburst, but If you look beyond his sound bite (and his race and his dreads and whatever else you don't like about how he talks or looks), you will find a man of great character, not just another stereotype. It's time we look beyond stereotypes when we judge people — all people.

Jack Brewer is CEO of The Brewer Group, a diversified global advisory firm. He is a former NFL player, received a master's degree in sports management from the University of Minnesota, and completed executive business programs at Harvard Business School and The Wharton School of Business. He is the senior advisor to President Joyce Banda of Malawi and founder of The Jack Brewer Foundation. He is an expert in sports finance and global economic development, and a regular CNBC contributor.